Finally settling down for a quick rest at an abandoned gas station outside Nasiriya, Iraq, after spending several days delivering supplies to U.S. troops at a bridgehead over the Euphrates River on March 25, U.S. Marine First Lt. James Uwins '98, didn't even have time to unroll his sleeping bag. Instead, he and his fellow Marines, members of the 2nd Battalion Eighth Marines out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., found themselves under fire from three sides. "There was no clue as to the specific direction the fire was coming from," Uwins later told the Associated Press. "But we knew it was coming from three sides on our perimeter."
The firefight, which lasted for some 90 minutes before coalition artillery drove off the attackers, left Uwins and 30 other U.S. troops injured. Uwins suffered shrapnel wounds to his legs and left arm, and currently is receiving treatment at the U.S. military medical facility at Landstuhl, Germany. Uwins was struck as he ran from truck to truck, checking on his Marines. Four of his battalion's trucks were destroyed in the attack, but none of Uwin's men was hurt. "I guess I should have kept my head down," he later quipped to a reporter for the Riverside Press-Enterprise.
Uwins told Associated Press reporter Panos Kakaviatos that, earlier in the day, his battalion had built 10-foot earthen berms at the abandoned gas station, hoping the location would provide a relatively safe rest stop when their last supply run was completed. "It seemed like a pretty good idea," he remarked. But, he added, "you have to be on 100 percent alert. You're not under a constant ambush all the time, but the fact that (the threat) is always there creates this high-level tension."
Despite his ordeal and the resulting injuries, Uwins clearly hasn't lost his sense of humor. At a press conference held at Landstuhl on April 2, he joked about how he'd now be setting off metal detectors at airports, thanks to the shrapnel in his legs and arm.
Following treatment in Germany, Uwins will return to the States for a reunion in North Carolina with his wife, Scripps alumna Jenny Davis-Uwins and their 18-month-old son, and with his family in South Pasadena, Calif.
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